Aspekte van gen. 1-3 en die natuurwetenskappe

This article wishes, from the angle of the subject of Revelation History, to offer thoughts and ideas about aspects touching on the shared issues of the various disciplines. The special nature of the material and of the purpose of Genesis 1 ff. does not necessarily imply that a closed suc­ cession of days is meant. God is the Creator and the Ruler over all things, and has a historical destiny for the earth. Man is the steward over creation, has an ecological task and is in that responsible to God. He is in a communational relation to God, and is free from the enslavement of a combination of natural and spiritual forces. There is a special re­ lation between man and beast, but there is no question of a communational relation there, only with God, of whom man is the image. Sin corrupted the relation between man and creation, but Genesis 2, 3 already stand in the sign of the expectation of restoration. There is a universal basis for the practice of scholarship, and at the same time the shaping demand is that knowledge begins with the service of God

Understanding the concept of land in the Old and New Testament: The importance of a personal factor

Since the early times of the calling of the patriarch Abraham, the land of Israel had a very important place in the Old Testament. Some say that the concept of land was “Christified” in the New Testament era and has since lost its importance. Others regard this approach as spiritualising and stress the sociological importance of the concept of land in the Old and New Testament. Some interpreters even advocate a theology of ecology. This article points out the important place of the personal factor with regard to land in the Old Testament and attempts to indicate how this line of thought also pervades the New Testament. It is only when this factor is borne in mind, that the theologian and preacher can see the different aspects of the concept of land in their true relation to each other